News and AnalysIs for

The General Royalty System (SGR) and the National Planning Department (DNP) have issued a string of nearly daily announcements in June detailing advancements and approval of projects that will receive funding using the royalty system.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos visited the city of Villavicencio in the Meta Department and called for a balance between oil production and the environmental and social needs of the community.

Colombia’s Unidad Nacional political party has put assistance to community mayors in obtaining funds from the General Royalty System (SGR) on the agenda, with a senior member suggesting changes might be needed at a congressional level.

Ecopetrol, through its subsidiary Bioenergy, has land holdings that exceed the legal limits established by Colombian law.

Officials charged with managing Colombia’s sea commerce and resources met with oil companies performing offshore exploration to discuss regulations surrounding the activities.

The administrators of Colombia’s General Royalties System (SGR) hosted planning secretaries from the country’s departmental governments to discuss the accomplishments of the new royalty system in its first year and talk about its reach looking forward.

The director of the ANLA said that plans are on track to have reference terms for the environmental licensing of nonconventional exploration and production by November.

This article is not about Interoil despite the title of the graph. Instead, Interoil’s recent May production announcement brought us to this graph which we thought illustrated perfectly a more universal issue.

In 2013 almost none of the assigned royalties from mining and energy production have been executed for regional projects and last year the investment of these funds amounted to only 5% of the total COP9.1TR (US$4.77B).

The General Royalties System (SGR) is calling on Colombia’s academic institutions to help facilitate the proposal process in regions through a “Train the Trainers” program where the universities will play a greater role preparing regional institutions for the SGR proposal process. Parallel to this announcement, the entity also summarized the results of royalty investments in several areas and received new projects as well.